


Frozen Out

by LulaIsAKitten



Series: Denmark Street musings [24]
Category: Cormoran Strike Series - Robert Galbraith
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Happy Ending, Ice, Winter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-15
Updated: 2019-12-18
Packaged: 2021-02-26 00:14:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21804292
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LulaIsAKitten/pseuds/LulaIsAKitten
Summary: I started this for the Strike Boxing Day Ficlet Fest prompt “slipping on ice”, but it ran long and went chaptery, so am posting it separately.Newly loved-up Strike and Robin - until a fall forces reality into their lives.
Relationships: Robin Ellacott/Cormoran Strike
Series: Denmark Street musings [24]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1035698
Comments: 119
Kudos: 125





	1. Baby It’s Cold Outside

It took only a moment for everything to change, to be turned on its head, unfathomable all of a sudden.

They’d closed up the office early the previous Friday for Christmas. Robin had braved telling her parents she wasn’t making the trek to Masham, that she was staying in London and making her own Christmas this year. Her mother had asked her, in that hinting tone of voice, if she was seeing Strike over the holidays, and Robin hadn’t bothered to deny it. She’d not officially told her parents that she and her work partner were in a relationship now, wanting to keep the deliciousness of it to herself for a little longer, but she was pretty sure Linda had guessed. Certainly there had been no real effort put into the mild protests that she wouldn’t be attending the Ellacott family celebrations. They had another new grandchild to coo over anyway, Robin told herself as she hung up the phone with not a hint of the guilt she’d expected to feel.

She’d had the best Christmas she had had in many years - maybe ever - waking up on Christmas morning wrapped in Strike’s strong arms, exchanging gifts and thank you kisses which had turned into more. The more had lasted so long, they had been disgracefully late for dinner at the Herberts’ and been forced to admit their relationship. Ilsa had squealed with delight and declared it the best present ever, and after lunch, replete and a little tipsy, had wept over them until Nick poked her fondly and told her to pull herself together. Basking in Strike’s attention, the little gold robin pendant he’d given her nestling against the front of her jumper, Robin had giggled at him pretending to admire it when she knew he’d been stealing covert glances at her figure. She thought this might be the happiest she had ever been.

They’d drifted into the lost days between Christmas and New Year as the whole country did, eating cheese and chocolates, watching television, snoozing. Long, lazy mornings and afternoons in bed enjoying one another. A cold snap had plunged London into sub-zero temperatures, and they had dragged themselves to the Tottenham for the afternoon for a change of scene. A couple of drinks sipped slowly, and a contented amble back towards Denmark Street, hand in hand.

Enchanted by Robin wrapped up in scarf and hat, her nose pink from the cold, and warmed by his two pints of Doom Bar and a general feeling of all being right with the world, Strike had pulled her into his arms and kissed her on the street in defiance of all his usual disdain for public shows of affection. They kissed deeply, and then he drew back and rested his forehead on hers, allowing the happiness and contentment to wash over them as they sighed together, before turning to continue the walk back to his flat.

Afterwards Robin couldn’t even remember how it had happened. One minute they were strolling, relaxed, easy in one another’s company, and the next her huge partner was on the ground. She hadn’t seen the ice he’d slipped on, but she felt the wrench as his hand was torn from hers, heard the sickening crunch as he hit the pavement, his low cry of pain tearing at her heart.

She dropped to crouch next to him, her heart a leaping flutter in her chest, adrenaline racing though her.

“Cormoran? Cormoran—”

For a heart-stopping moment she saw that he wasn’t breathing, and panic knifed her, but he made a strange strangled noise and she realised he was just winded. She rubbed his back soothingly, her own breath coming in shaky gasps, and he was soon sat up, ungraciously waving away the passers-by who had stopped to offer help, his furious scowl and sullen brows deterring them from insisting too hard. Before long the world was back to normal, and Robin was helping him to clamber back upright.

The world wasn’t normal, though. Robin assisted Strike into the building, which was mercifully close. He leaned on her heavily, his bad leg clearly damaged further, and she could see he was nursing his shoulder on the same side. They made the slow, painful ascent to his flat, and Robin insisted on helping him off with his coat and then his jumper so that she might inspect the shoulder. His leg, she wasn’t sure how to broach.

He jumped and swore as she examined him, but wouldn’t entertain the idea of going to A&E at such a busy time of year, and he wouldn’t make any move towards even investigating his leg, growing more and more irritated at her ministrations. Eventually, Robin, rebuffed at every attempt to help, retreated to the kitchen part of his main room, hurt and a little upset, to make mugs of tea. Strike hauled himself up off the dining chair she’d sat him on, picked up his discarded jumper, limped heavily into his bedroom and closed the door.

Robin made the tea as slowly as she could, but there was only so long one could spend squeezing tea bags, faffing with milk, washing up the spoon. She set the mugs of tea on the table and sat down and waited. There was ominous silence from the bedroom, and for the first time in their brief relationship, Robin felt that to enter his personal space would be intruding.

She sipped her tea and wondered what to do. She was debating calling him to tell him his tea was ready when abruptly the bedroom door opened and she jumped.

She cast anxious eyes across his face. He wouldn’t quite meet her gaze, and this, too, was new. Her heart sank. This was the cold, reserved Strike she hadn’t seen for so long. Not since she’d left Matthew, in fact.

He stepped across to the table. He’d removed his boot, and she assumed he’d been examining his leg.

“How is it?” she asked tentatively.

“Fine.” His tone was curt, dismissive. And clearly a lie from the difficulty with which he moved. Stung, Robin took another gulp of her tea. It was still too hot, and scalded her throat. She felt the burn slide down behind her breastbone, and stared at her mug and wondered what to do.

“Thanks,” Strike muttered, picking up his tea. He made no move to sit opposite her, instead choosing to drink his tea standing up. Robin had a sudden sense that he wanted her to leave, followed swiftly by a prickle behind her eyes and the realisation that she was close to tears. The shock and fear engendered by his fall and this new sudden distance between them had burst the bubble of happiness they’d been living in. It had evaporated as though it had never existed.

He’d picked up his tea with his left hand, his right held carefully at his side. Robin sighed.

“Shall I pop down to the chemist for some painkillers?” she suggested cautiously.

“I’ve got some.” Again, that distant, dismissive tone. “Thanks,” he added, a reluctant afterthought.

Robin nodded. The silence stretched. Still he just stood there, sipping his tea, not quite looking at her.

Her thoughts raced. He wasn’t good with pain, she knew that. Or with appearing weak, she knew that too. She understood these things, she had brothers and knew how male pride worked. Probably best to change the subject.

“What shall we have for dinner?” she asked lightly. “I think we might be out of leftovers from Ilsa and Nick’s. If you want to come back to mine, I could do that salmon?”

He shook his head, his lips pressed together. Those lips that had explored every part of her body, given her pleasure she hadn’t known she was capable of experiencing. He hardly seemed the same person as the gentle, loving man she’d been to bed with every night for weeks. In whose arms she had awoken every morning.

“You go on home, Robin,” he told her. “I’ve got a few things I need to do here.”

She told herself not to overreact. “Sure,” she said lightly. “I could do with getting some laundry done, pick up some more clean clothes, that sort of thing. Um, shall I come back later?”

He almost flinched. “I’ll text you. Maybe tomorrow.” He still wouldn’t quite look at her.

Robin stood and moved to the sink, emptying out the dregs of her tea and setting her mug down, her thoughts churning, trying to keep up.

“Okay,” she said lightly. “I’ll just grab my stuff.”

She stepped around him into the bedroom. It was the work of a few moments to gather up the items of clothing she had here. Her spare toothbrush she decided to leave. It seemed a little pointed to take it.

Determined to remain calm, she returned to the living room. Strike hadn’t moved. Robin dumped her things on the table while she pulled her coat on, then gathered them back up again. She hesitated, then stepped up to him. “Talk later,” she said, and reached up to kiss him, leaning across the bundle in her arms.

He shifted just slightly, bending his head to hers but angling so that their lips missed. His kiss next to her mouth was perfunctory. “Yup,” he said, and was already turning away as she stepped back.

Robin managed to resist the urge to slam the door behind her.


	2. Ice Ice Baby

Robin stormed home in a rage, her arms full of clothes because she hadn’t thought to pick up a bag, glaring at anyone who dared cast her a curious sideways glance on the Tube. But by the time she reached her flat, the anger-fuelled adrenaline had worn off and her throat was tightening up. She let herself in, barely noticing the cold space that hadn’t seen its occupant in days. She marched across to her bedroom, dumped the clothes into the laundry basket and burst into tears, berating herself even as she cried for being pathetic.

She sat on the edge of her bed and allowed herself to cry for a few minutes, and then grabbed a handful of tissues and mopped herself up.

_You knew he does this,_ she told herself. _This is who he is. He shuts people out when he’s hurting._

Somehow she’d never expected him to do it to her. Fresh tears welled, and she dashed them away angrily and went to put the kettle on.

While the kettle boiled, she went back to grab the contents of the laundry hamper and put a load of wash on. She poked at the boiler and put the heating on override for an hour to try to warm the flat up a little, and checked the contents of the fridge. She threw away a couple of things that had gone out of date, and managed to whisk herself up a quick omelette for her tea. All the while she pondered on Strike and what to do.

They hadn’t really discussed what they were to one another. Having tumbled into bed after a night at the Tottenham, they’d spent all weekend together. Even upset as she was, Robin felt a surge of heat as she remembered that first weekend. She had never experienced anything like it in her life. Strike had shown the same utter focus on enjoying her and learning her body that he applied to everything in life, and he was so physically different to Matthew. Robin had lain awake long after he had fallen asleep in her arms, remembering, marvelling, holding him close with a goofy smile on her face and a satisfied ache in her body as those familiar snores rumbled through her.

They’d gone back to work on the Monday, and somehow working together and being together had just...worked. In the office they were exactly the same as they had always been, and after work either they would go for dinner together or get a takeaway, or if one of them had gone home while the other was still out on a case, they’d drift together later that night. It had all somehow just happened. They’d never had a discussion about where they were going, but Robin realised she had assumed a permanence to their relationship that perhaps she shouldn’t have.

Matthew was her only experience, she reminded herself, and she’d married him. Maybe on some level she had just assumed that that was where relationships went - into permanence and mutual reliance. Not that she had been thinking about marrying Strike, but had she subconsciously assumed that that was the ultimate destination on their journey?

Whereas he had managed to avoid such a commitment in sixteen years with Charlotte.

She recalled, now, the text she had accidentally read on his phone last year from Lorelei. She couldn’t remember the exact wording, but she remembered its implication, that Strike had only wanted sex and food with no emotional commitment. Perhaps that was all he wanted from her. Certainly when she had tried to step into the territory of looking after him - in sickness and in health - she had been firmly rebuffed.

Matthew had always wanted her to look after him, his soft pleas for Lemsip and cups of tea when he decided he had flu, his pale gratitude as she took his temperature and clucked over him and trotted up and down the stairs, making him sandwiches and snacks that she was sure he wouldn’t feel like eating if he really had flu. He had revelled in it, seeming to see it as proof of her love and commitment to him that she would look after him. And to be fair, he had reciprocated, clumsily attempting to look after her when she was ill despite the fact that Robin would always rather have gone to bed alone and stayed there undisturbed until she felt well enough to resurface.

Strike had never wanted mollycoddling. He had gone out of his way to avoid her physical assistance ever since she had met him, and she knew Nick nagged him gently about his physical health and Ilsa occasionally offered to drive him to appointments for his leg. He brushed them off, too.

Robin sighed and pushed her plate away. It was late now, well and truly dark. Her phone remained resolutely silent. No text from Strike.

She washed up her plate, hung her clothes on the airer, watched a little television with another cup of tea. But the quick blast from the heating had not made an appreciable difference to the chill that pervaded her mostly empty, ignored residence, and she shivered a little even wrapped in a blanket. Eventually she gave up and went to bed.

She hadn’t slept alone for weeks. Crawling into a cold bed reminded her suddenly of the early months after she had left Matthew. There was something so lonely about an empty double bed. She tried to take ownership of the middle as she had taught herself to do then, but she’d got used to sleeping on one side again.

Her phone lay on her bedside table, mocking her with its silence. Lonely, Robin was determined not to cry.

She tossed and turned until she warmed up a little. Eventually she picked up her phone and texted Strike. “Good night xx”

There was no answer. Slowly, Robin fell into an uneasy, cold sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It gets better, I promise!


	3. Frosty the Snowman

Robin was in the middle of a cleaning blitz of her flat the next morning, mop in hand and her hair in a loose ponytail, when Strike finally texted back. She pounced on her phone.

“Sorry, took really strong painkillers and went to bed early. Only just surfaced.”

She stared at her phone, irritation flaring again. No updates on his condition, no suggestion they get together, no kiss as had been added to the end of every text from him in recent weeks.

Maybe he was composing another. She set the phone down and went back to work.

No further text was forthcoming.

Robin’s flat was not large. By lunchtime, she had run out of things to clean and polish and wipe and scrub. She ironed last night’s wash load and put it away, and went down to the local Tesco for more groceries and some lunch.

She wandered the aisles listlessly, wondering if she’d be eating alone for a few nights or if she should buy for two. She found herself lingering in front of Strike’s favourite biscuits, hesitating. Determination rose suddenly. _This is ridiculous._

She bought the biscuits, and a pint of milk and some painkillers, and went back to her flat. She put her shopping away, ate her sandwich, locked up the flat and set off for Denmark Street with the supplies she had bought for Strike.

Her heart beat faster as she entered their building and started up the stairs. First floor, on up to the second...

The office lights were on. Robin hesitated a moment, then went in. “Hiya,” she called out, just as she always did.

His answering rumble came from the inner office. Robin poked her head in.

Strike had clearly been there some time. Files were spread out across his desk, photographs propped along the windowsill. Several empty mugs and an overflowing ashtray sat next to a half bottle of whisky and a small glass. He was writing, laboriously slowly, and a swift glance told her he was still struggling with that shoulder.

Biting back a comment about mixing painkillers and whisky, she merely said, as one or other of them often would, “Cuppa?”

“Please,” he grunted, and she retired to her half of the office to make tea. She switched on her computer while she waited for the kettle to boil.

Strike had always retreated into work when he was thinking something over. Maybe this was what they needed. Reestablish some boundaries.

She took him his tea, plonked it on the edge of his desk and marched swiftly back to her half of the office without waiting to see if he’d look up. She settled herself at her desk, opened her latest file and started work.

As ever, she was soon lost too. The fascination for the job was something they had always shared. Eventually, an hour or so later, Strike emerged from the inner office, dumped four empty mugs in the sink and turned towards the outer door.

“Cormoran—”

There was the tiniest hesitation before he turned back, that guarded look in place again, but now Robin barely noticed. Distance from her cases had made her see them with fresh eyes. Almost looking through him, her eyes on him but her attention elsewhere, she said slowly:

“Do you think it’s possible, and hear me out...” She trailed to a stop and then started again. “What if Monobrow is his own leak?”

Strike blinked at her, confused. He’d clearly been expecting another conversation entirely. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, it’s audacious, given our success rate. But if he believes he can pull the wool over our eyes... Well, it kind of lets him off the hook, doesn’t it? If he looks like he’s done all he can to trace the leaks, and still his company secrets are getting out and his engineers’ designs are being patented by other people? He could be selling them himself.”

Strike was staring at her now, and the shutters had been lowered. She watched the calculations going on behind his eyes. “All those charity auctions he runs—”

“Exactly!” Robin said. “You said it was odd, the amount of charity work he insisted the company did. It’s an excuse to move money about legitimately.”

Strike nodded vigorously. “I said he sounded too good to be true. And if something sounds too good to be true, it usually is.”

Robin was gazing at the coat stand now, still thinking. Her eyes flitted back to his. “His PA must be in on it too. No way he could do it without her.”

“I agree. Hm. Wonder if they’re—”

He stopped abruptly and didn’t finish the sentence. Just like that, the air hung heavy and awkward again, the brief reconnection snapped. Robin fiddled with her pen pot and hoped her cheeks weren’t as pink as they felt.

Strike cleared his throat and nodded towards the door. “Excuse me, I’ll just... Too much tea...” he murmured, and hurried out. Robin heard the door to the little toilet open and close.

She sighed, deflated. For a moment things had felt normal again. She turned back to her file.

He was a long time, too long even for a man getting rid of four mugs of tea. He was either struggling with his shoulder more than he was admitting, or avoiding her. Robin kept her eyes on her screen and typed rapidly, forming a list of suspicions and open ends, and thinking of questions she might ask of their potentially dodgy client to try to uncover as much of the truth as they could before he became aware that he was suddenly a suspect.

Eventually Strike returned. He merely nodded as he went past, back to his own office. “Good thinking there.”

“I’m making a list of questions,” Robin replied to his retreating back.

The remainder of the afternoon passed quietly, what little of it there was. Eventually Robin could hear Strike tidying up files and setting his desk straight. He was as meticulous at work as he had obviously been in the Army, and would put everything in its proper place before he left.

Robin wondered what would happen this evening.

Finally Strike emerged as she was shutting down her PC and tidying her own file. She stood and turned to the filing cabinet behind her, opening the drawer and slipping the file into place.

Strike hovered a moment. “Good night,” he eventually said to her back, reaching for the door. Robin turned.

“Cormoran—”

He paused, his hand on the door handle, and stood and looked at her. Robin took a step towards him and stopped. “Are we going to talk about this?”

At least he didn’t try to pretend, as Matthew would have done, that he didn’t know what she meant.

“I just need a few days to sort my leg and my shoulder out. I’m not good company when I’m in pain.”

Robin grinned, disarming him. “I know.”

He chuckled, reluctantly, but the frost between them thawed a little.

“But I could... I don’t know. I could fetch you ice, or massage it, or at least make you dinner and bring you cups of tea so you can put your leg up.”

It was the wrong thing to have said. She felt the temperature drop a few degrees again, the hint of melting gone. “I don’t need looking after.”

Irritation needled her. “I know you don’t. But I thought maybe you might like it.”

“Well, I wouldn’t.” His jaw set, obstinate. His hand flexed on the door handle. She could see he wanted to leave.

Robin stared at him, searching his face, and he looked away. He couldn’t meet her gaze.

“Cormoran, talk to me. What’s going on here?”

His jaw tightened almost imperceptibly. “Nothing.”

Robin took another step forward, tried a different tack. “I’m just trying to help.”

“I don’t want help!” he burst out, too loudly. “I’m fine, I don’t need you mollycoddling me.”

Robin briefly wondered what was going on beneath the surface that she wasn’t getting. She took a deep breath.

“I wasn’t proposing to mollycoddle you. I was suggesting bringing you cups of tea, like you did for me the time I twisted my ankle.” She watched him carefully. Why wouldn’t he want her taking care of him?

“That’s different,” he insisted.

She folded her arms. “How?”

“Your ankle got better. It was finite.”

Puzzlement drew Robin’s brows together. “So is this. Your shoulder will heal and your leg will go back to how it was. I didn’t fuss over you before.”

He sighed, frustrated. “I know, but—”

“But what?” She took another step towards him, and she could have sworn he flinched, just slightly. Realisation hit her, and her eyes searched his.

“Cormoran, I’m not Charlotte.”

His eyes left hers at once, dropping to the floor, but she’d seen it. She was right. “I know,” he muttered.

“What did she do?”

“Just go home, Robin. I’ll be okay in a few days.”

Robin hesitated. She could push it, but what would that prove? Just that she was another pushy woman, trying to tell him what was best for him. She knew that feeling only too well.

She shrugged. “Okay,” she said, picking up her coat, and she sensed his surprise. He had expected resistance. She pulled her coat on and stepped around him to the door, and he moved back out of her way as she passed him.

On the little landing, Robin turned back.

“Just so we’re clear. I was offering cups of tea and a bit of moral support. Just like we’ve always done for each other. Not pity. Not mollycoddling. And certainly not making you sandwiches every bloody five minutes like I had to do for Matt.”

Startled, he laughed at that. Robin flashed cool, steel grey eyes at him.

“I have no more desire to run around after you than you have to be run around after. When you’ve decided to stop being an arse, you know where I am.”

She swung away and marched down the stairs. _Don’t look back, don’t look back, don’t look back._

She made it all the way along Denmark Street and onto Charing Cross Road before the first tear, helped along by the bitter air, escaped onto her cheek.


	4. All By Myself

“Right,” Robin said aloud to herself as she entered her flat. “This is a Bridget Jones evening.”

She switched the heating on, removed her coat, and looked around with some satisfaction at her pristinely clean flat. _Every cloud..._

She sat down on the sofa for a few moments, thinking about Strike. She’d been right about Charlotte, she was sure of it. He’d been expecting a fight.

She wondered if that was what he had had to do with his ex. Get his defences up early, protect his stance, not let her see any chink of vulnerability that she might crowbar her way into. Had Charlotte decided that attack was the best form of defence?

In that case, she had just given him something to think about, and there was nothing to do but let him think. She sighed, and stood and moved across to the kitchen. Determined to resist the urge to text Strike, she shoved her phone deep in her handbag and left it on the kitchen side.

Within ten minutes, the central heating was blasting and Robin was curled up on her sofa, wrapped in a blanket, with a huge mug of hot chocolate containing a generous slug of Baileys, and a box of Thornton’s from her parents sat open next to her. She turned the TV right up - she was pretty sure the girl in the flat below was still away - and settled in for a concentrated evening of wallowing. Her phone was to be ignored. If he wanted her, he could ring like normal people.

She cried a bit at the start of the film, muttering to Bridget, “He’s just aloof! He’s lovely underneath!” but was soon giggling along at the antics in the office where Bridget worked and at her useless cooking.

She had got all the way to the scene where Mark Darcy marches out into the snow and Bridget runs after him before her mobile rang in her bag. She paused the film, paused a moment herself to admire a snow-flecked Colin Firth, then hurried to pull her phone from the depths of her bag. Strike. And below his call, two missed texts.

“Hello?”

“I decided to stop being an arse.” He sounded sheepish.

Robin giggled. “Okay. Want me to come over?”

“Actually, can I come up?”

“Oh, are you here?” Robin moved across to the window, and sure enough, there he was on the street below, waving up at her.

“Yeah, I texted you to say sorry and could I come round, and again to say I was coming anyway. You didn’t answer, but I figured I deserved that.”

Robin laughed softly, waving back at him. “I’m not that petty. I’m watching a film and my phone was in my bag. I didn’t see them.”

“So can I come up? It’s cold out here.”

Robin reflected that, if this were the moment it was in the film, Strike would be smiling handsomely up at her, arms outstretched while snowflakes drifted around him, rather than squinting through London drizzle, his weight held awkwardly on his good leg, his right arm stiff at his side.

He was still gorgeous, and hers. “Of course you can, silly.” She moved across to the entry phone by her front door and pressed the buzzer to let him in.


	5. Winter Wonderland

Robin opened the door to see her partner stood there, and at once she could see that his mood was conciliatory. He smiled at her softly, reserve gone, and she grinned back and stepped aside. “Come in.”

He took his coat off and hung it up, glancing around. “Wow. You’ve been on a cleaning blitz.”

Robin chuckled. “It’s what I do. We need to make sure we fall out regularly, keep the place tidy.”

He turned to her. “Robin, I’m sorry. I didn’t want to fall out with you. I just—”

He hesitated. “I felt like a complete shit after you’d gone. And then I went to wash up the mugs and found the bag with the biscuits and the milk and the tablets, and I felt even worse.”

Robin laid a gentle hand on his arm. “Cup of tea?”

He nodded gratefully.

“I’m having hot chocolate with a hint of Baileys. Want a little something in your tea? I’ve got whisky, but sadly it’s not Arran single malt.”

“That would be lovely, thanks.” Strike moved to the sofa and stood and looked at the television, at the freeze-framed snow-garnished Mark Darcy. Flushing a little, Robin grabbed the remote and turned it off on her way to the kitchen.

When she returned with the drinks, Strike was sat on the sofa, regarding the cast-aside blanket half covering the box of chocolates. “Looks like I interrupted, sorry.”

She passed him his tea and sat down next to him. “I was nearly done.”

He grinned. “You’ve got a few chocolates left.”

Robin passed him the box. “I saved those for you. They’re your favourites.”

Silence settled over the little room as Strike stared at the mostly empty box of chocolates on his lap. He was very still. Robin sipped her hot chocolate and waited.

Eventually, he raised his eyes to hers, and her heart lurched at the vulnerable expression on his face. He looked at her, uncertain.

“Charlotte would have eaten them, or binned them out of spite.”

“Well. What a waste of perfectly good chocolates.”

He laughed a little. “Yeah.”

“And we have already established I’m not Charlotte.”

He gave a deep sigh. “I know. I’m sorry, Robin.”

He paused. “She...pitied me, after I lost my leg. She never said so, but I could see it in her face. She thought I was broken, damaged goods. She’d seen me in my heyday, remember, whole and fit.”

He sighed. “I think she liked it, though, in a perverse way. Me being helpless. It put her in control. And I know it’s male ego, but I hated it. A guy wants to be the protector, not the weak one.” He glanced sideways at her. “I couldn’t bear it if you looked at me like that.”

“And have I ever?” Robin asked levelly.

He looked down again. “No.”

There was a longer pause. Strike slowly picked up one of the chocolates and ate it, thinking.

“It brought some stuff home to me, falling like that,” he said, finally.

“Like what?”

He shrugged. “That you deserve better. That I’ve been kidding myself these last few weeks, burying my head in the sand because I was so happy, when in reality I’m not good enough for you and I know it.”

“Cormoran—”

“Look at you,” he interrupted. “You should be ice skating and building snowmen and being looked after. You should have a future with a house in the suburbs with children and a dog.”

Robin laughed. “Have you been watching too many Christmas films?”

He pulled a face at her. “I’m not explaining it very well. But you deserve all the things I can’t give you. Financial security. A family.”

He sighed. “Plus... I felt like now you’ll know how weak and vulnerable I am with this bloody leg. Only ever one wrong step - literally - from trouble. I don’t have the right to subject you to worrying about me.”

“Cormoran—”

“Please, let me finish. I told myself I mustn’t cling to you. That I’m being selfish holding on to you when you could have so much more than I can offer. I never intended this to happen between us, but it did, and I didn’t want it to stop...”

He trailed off, and there was a long pause. Robin sipped her hot chocolate and gazed at him and thought. Strike shifted uncomfortably under her scrutiny and drank his tea.

Robin set her mug down on the table in front of them. “Right.”

She turned to face him, tucking her leg under herself. “First of all, I had all that, the future in the suburbs with kids and a dog, with Matthew, and it was a gilded cage. I was suffocating, sometimes literally. And you’re the only person in my life who truly understands that. Everyone else just thinks I left because he slept with Sarah.”

She held his gaze, willing him to understand. “You’re the only person who believed in me, believed in my abilities and saw what I could do. It’s because of you I found the courage to leave the cage and spread my wings.”

She snorted. “Well, and because Matthew was a twat.”

Strike grinned. “I won’t argue with that.”

Robin chuckled a little.

“But seriously,” she went on. “I’ll decide what I deserve, what I want. You don’t get to choose for me. Nobody does any more.”

Strike nodded.

“And weak?” she scoffed a little. “You’re the strongest man I know, Cormoran. Look at what you’ve come through, what you go through every day. And you never wallow or indulge in self-pity. The first sign of trouble, Matt ran to the arms of another woman. Twice.”

She hesitated. “I know we haven’t discussed what we are to each other, but I know - I _know,_ Cormoran - that you would never do that to me.”

He reached for her hand. “Of course I wouldn’t. I don’t want anyone but you.”

Robin tangled her fingers with his. “You’re strong and loyal and brave. And I don’t mean that to sound as patronising as it does.” She raised her eyes to his again. “I want you, Cormoran. I choose you. For as long as you’ll have me.”

He regarded her steadily, seriously, then leaned forward and kissed her, and Robin slid her arms round his neck and melted into him. Desire sparked at once, like it always did.

Strike hummed a little against her mouth and drew back, smiling, murmuring, “You taste amazing. Really chocolatey.”

Robin giggled. “Better keep tasting me, then.”

He growled and pressed closer, deepening the kiss. He kissed her until she was shivering with desire, pressing closer, her hands tangling into his hair, pulling at him.

“Come to bed?” Robin murmured as Strike began to kiss his way along her jaw to her neck. He made a rumbling sound deep in his chest, his lips exploring. “Gladly.”

Grinning, Robin wriggled free and stood, pulling him up off the sofa and leading him though to her bedroom. She tugged at his jumper and he winced a little as he raised his right arm. Gently she helped him remove it, and then stripped off her own jumper and jeans and clambered into the bed while Strike wrestled with his trousers and leg - as she’d suspected, not easy with a bad arm - and climbed in with her in just his T-shirt and boxers.

He lay down next to her, and gazed up at her reverently as Robin leaned over him to kiss him again. His hand found her waist, and then splayed across the small of her back under the edge of her top, marvelling as always at the smoothness of her skin. They kissed and kissed for long minutes, heat rising, Robin rocking her hips gently against him, making him see stars.

“You know,” Strike murmured as she broke free of his mouth and began to gently explore his jaw, rubbing her cheek against his stubble, “you’re going to have to take the lead here.” He grinned at the ceiling, goosebumps washing across him as her lips found his neck. “Not sure how much I can manage with only one leg and one arm fully working.”

Robin drew back and laughed at his cheeky wink.

“Well, make your mind up,” she admonished him gently, teasing. “Do you want special treatment because you’re hurt, or do you not?”

Strike laughed his big laugh and shook his head.

“You’re a wonder, Robin Ellacott.”

Serious suddenly, he slid his hand into her hair and drew her close, kissing her lips lightly. “I love you.”

Tears filled Robin’s eyes. Maybe this was what he had really been afraid of.

“I love you too,” she murmured, her heart singing with happiness. She kissed him again and then pressed her cheek to his, breathing him, waiting for the unsteady rise and fall of his chest to settle, the clinging hand in her hair to relax.

Eventually she drew back again, her misty eyes meeting his, and chuckled.

“Now lie back and do as you’re told.”

Grinning, Strike obeyed, closing his eyes as the rush of emotion was subsumed by a rush of something else entirely as he felt Robin’s mouth on his chest.


End file.
